...Have Christmas Spirit with Rotaract?

On December 23, I went to the mall with two girls from school to do some Christmas shopping. Well actually, first I went to my third host family's house to exchange presents with them and have some tea. Then, from there, I got dropped off at the mall where I met up with my friends. I only had an hour, so we quickly found all the gifts we needed. After shopping, the president of the Rotaract club picked me up from the mall and we went to this place called Casa Sicem. It's this house where single moms can go with their children to live.We all brought presents to give out to the moms and kids. It was nice to get to go along. Before I came I used to think of Italy as this beautiful glamorous place and it's interesting to get to see that behind the travel books and postcards it's really no different than the USA. They suffer from some of the same problems as us. I'm glad I got that experience.

...Eat PIZZA, PIZZA, PIZZA!?

December was a really busy month for me. The Friday after the Christmas lunch, I got invited to eat a pizza with one of the classes I go to for English. Every year, all the classes plan a class outing for dinner. Usually, they start with a light drink like spritz and then head to the pizzeria after. I went with my friend Sabrina and we got there a little late so we went straight to the pizzeria. We all ate and then after, they decided to go from more drinks. So we walked around the center until we found a bar that wasn't too busy. I don't know why, but they decided to sit outside. Now, it wasn't really that cold, around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but after about a half an hour outside it started to get really cold. We finally decided to leave around 11:30. The next day I had to go to school. However, its wasn't that bad because we didn't have to do anything all day. They had people come in and talk for a little bit and then after that, there was food and dancing with a DJ. After school, I had been invited to another class pizza so I walked with them to the town center and we ate. After, we went to a bar to get coffee and then I walked to the station to catch my bus home. The next Friday, I went to my class's dinner. I don't know if I've said this before, but smoking is really big in Italy and most people roll their own cigarettes. So my classmates taught me to roll too, not that I plan on using the skill anytime. It's actually harder than it looks. Okay back on topic. I ate so much pizza in a week that I don't think I'll need anymore for the rest of the year.

This is the second class pizza I went to.

 

Me and some girls from my class!

...Cook Christmas Lunch in Cordovado?

So the weekend after Verona, we had a district event to go to. They told us we would all have to prepare a dish from our home countries for all the host families. That's right! They left 12  exchange students in charge of cooking for 60 people. So I'll start with the bus ride to Treviso. Yes, again I had a much longer travel than most because I couldn't just take a train from Bassano to Cordovado. So I had about and hour and a half bus ride from Bassano to Treviso. Then when I got there, Demi and Yash (the exchange students living in Treviso) were waiting there to pick me up. We had about 2 hours before the next train so they decided to show me their city. It was really foggy though so I don't really have any pictures because they all turned out horribly. We walked around the center and got coffee and then headed back to the station. We were a little early so we decided to wait on a bench. Little did we know our train had been waiting there the whole time, while we were freezing our butts off waiting. So we got on the train and the ride lasted about an hour. We then got picked up at the station and driven to the hotel we were staying in. Once everyone had finally arrived, we headed to the pizzeria. After we all ate we went out to explore the town. It was a very little town that consisted of pretty much one main road so it wasn't that exciting. At about midnight we headed back to the hotel where we all hung out in one room. In the morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed to the place we would be cooking. I was in the last car to arrive. Since we were late, pretty much all the dishes and pots and pans had been taken already. So we started making room for ourselves trying to find things to cook with. Not only that, but also half the ingredients we needed aren't available here so we had to improvise. If you have never tried cooking in a kitchen with 12 people making different things and only one stove and oven and limited pots and pans, I don't suggest you try. We were all just running all over the place looking for ingredients and clean dishes. Although it was very stressful, I think we all ended up having a good time and all the food turned out okay. As we we're finishing up and preparing to serve everything, the host families started to show up. And for some reason they all decided they needed to be in the kitchen, so it started to get really stressful again. Not only that, but also the outbounds for next year were in there. In addition, we had a short term exchange student from South Africa who was helping cook. So We finally served our food and ate. Then the kids went outside to play soccer. My host family couldn't come because they had a sick relative in the hospital so afterwards I rode home with Ellen. Then my host family came and picked me up from her house. It was nice to have food other than the normal things I eat here.

 

 Demi on the Train

 

 Me and Yash on the Train

 

 Sarah being Sarah at the pizzeria

 

 and again

 Me and Demi
 

 A random condom machine on the side of the road. 

(they're everywhere)
 

 Playing cards in the hotel

 

 

Me and Demi ready for bed

Ellen helping me shred my potatoes.

Me, Sarah and Yash!

Everyone in the Kitchen!

 

 

...Verona?

I know I am like the worst blogger ever. I like never post anything new, but from now on I'll work harder on it! Okay so like the first week of December, I went to Verona to celebrate my friend Emily's birthday! Emily is also a rotary exchange student and she is from Canada. So after school that Saturday, I got home from school, ate, packed my stuff, and then got on a bus and headed to Vicenza. When  I got there, Anika and Ellen were at the bus station waiting for me. I got off the bus and met them and we walked together to the train station. Our train was already there, so we quickly jumped on and found three seats together. It was a nice train so it only told around forty minutes to get to Verona. When we got there, we met up with Emily and Sarah and walked together to the center of the city. Beforehand, Emily had told us that the station and the center were really close together. However, it was about a 10 minute walk. Which may not sound like very far, but I was considering them to basically be connected like they are in Bassano and Vicenza. When We got there, there were people everywhere. Verona is definitely bigger than I'm used to. I remembered that many people had told me about pickpockets being really bad in Italy so I made sure to keep my backpack close. A little while later as we were standing looking into a shop window someone tried to reach into Ellen's backpack, but fortunately they didn't take anything before she noticed what they were doing. We did some good shopping that night in the shops and Christmas market. Then we met up with Maddie, another exchange student in Verona. As it started getting later, we headed to a cute little café to grab something to eat. After dinner, we went back to the area close to the arena and ran into some street performers. Although they are really interesting to watch, I've realized that it's better to just stay away because they are always expecting money in return and will follow you for it. After, we walked Maddie to her bus stop and waited on Emily's host dad to pick us up (she lives about 20 minutes outside of Verona). When we got to her house, there was a coke waiting for us. We all sat down and ate and talked to her father on Skype and then later we went to bed. The next morning, we woke up and caught a bus back to Verona. We then met with Emily's friends from school and all went for a pizza together. After lunch, we set off for some more shopping (exchange students love to shop!) After a long day we headed back to the train station to get our train home. However, we were a little late and ended up having to run because Sarah didn't have her ticket yet and you can't buy regional tickets a half hour before they leave. So she would have had to buy a 20 euro ticket instead of 4 euro. Fortunately, we got there in time and we all made it back to our host cities without problems. 

Emily with her birthday artichoke. 

(Anika decided to get Emily a Artichoke from the Saturday day market while they were waiting for me at the station.)

 

Me and Ellen after eating our candy treat bags!

The arena

(It was too dark to get a good picture)

 

The arena again with Christmas decorations

 Emily with a street performer

 

 The cute café we ate in!

 Me, Sarah, and Emily on the bus in Verona.

 A candy store (there is usually one in every town like this, and we always find them!)
 

 Our successful day of shopping!
 

 Life-like candy
 

Taking selfies while I was riding the bus home alone.

 

All the girls at dinner!

 

Us before we left with Emily's school friends

I hope to go back to Verona soon and actually see the city!